In February 2014 Facebook celebrates its 10-year anniversary
Time to look back and see how Facebook transformed the way people interact with
Social Networks.
“On February 8th, 2004 Facebook had a whopping 650 users”
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| Birthyear of Facebook 2004 |
The Palo Alto-based company transformed special in the early
days a lot to accommodate a total new client base. Original it was only a
collaboration tool for universities but opened the doors quickly after moving
from Harvard University down to Silicon Valley, Palo Alto. Early rebranding
from [thefacebook] to Facebook and the switch to a more image-led news feed on
handheld devices, along with the countless other features it has implemented
including photo, video, checking in and official pages.
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| Original Facebook of the launch year 2004 |
Facebook's limited early design reflects the company's
humble beginnings, with the website of course being created in a university
dorm room by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg.
Lets take a look at some of the developments which happen
over the last decade.
August 2005 - TheFacebook becomes Facebook.com.
September 2005 - Facebook expands to high school students.
October 2005 - The Photos application makes its debut.
December 2005 - Facebook reaches 5.5 million users.
April 2006 - Facebook Mobile debuts.
August 2006 - Facebook Platform launches, Notes application
debuts, Facebook partners with Microsoft.
September 2006 - Facebook News Feed launches, users revolt
against privacy settings. Facebook opens to all users.
December 2006 - Facebook has 12 million users.
August 2007 - Facebook releases iPhone optimized site.
November 2007 - Facebook Ads launch, users complain about
Beacon
March 2008 - Facebook adds privacy controls to Friend List.
April 2008 - Facebook launches Facebook Chat.
May 2008 - Facebook F8 Developer conference launches
Facebook Platform and Facebook Apps.
July 2008 - Facebook Connect debuts and Facebook for iPhone
hits the App Store.
September 2008 - New Facebook becomes permanent despite user
backlash.
October 2008 - Facebook Platform for Mobile, Microsoft
invests big in Facebook.
February 2009 - Facebook introduces “Like” feature and TOS
changes bring controversy.
June 2009 - Facebook usernames launch.
August 2009 - Facebook acquires FriendFeed.
October 2009 - Facebook changes its privacy policy
December 2009 - Facebook has 350 million users.
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| Facebook 2009 after 5 years development |
April 2010 - Open Graph API launches.
May 2010 - Facebook privacy issues reach overdrive.
July 2010 - Facebook reaches 500 million users.
August 2010 - Facebook Places launches, privacy concerns
grow.
October 2010 - The Social Network debuts to rave reviews.
December 2010 - Time magazine names Mark Zuckerberg
"Person of the Year."
January 2011 - Facebook valued at $50 billion.
April 2012 – Facebook acquires Instagram
May 2012 - Emoticons added to chat
June 2012 – facebook.com email addresses get introduced
July 2012 - Deeper Instagram integration
Jan 2013 - Graph Search is probably Facebook’s most
important feature
Aug 2013 - New Chat Room feature started to circulate
February 2014 – Facebook acquires WhatsUp
So what will come next. Two aspects I want to highlight as
an outlook into the future. While Mark Zuckerberg is passionate about the
timeline and the news feed to get more and more personalized, benchmarking the
important updates from real friend versus not real friends.
In the future Facebook will get a better access to relevant information with making information relevant applications. Facebook will offload content to separated apps and move
away from the actual facebook app to keep it slim. A good start was the acquisition
of Instagram and WhatsApp, the separation of the messenger app and the introduction
of the new app paper, and more will follow.
"Today, only one-third of the world's population has access to the internet. In the next decade, we have the opportunity and the responsibility to connect the other two-thirds." - Mark Zuckerberg
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| User development of Facebook 2004 - 2014 |
